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Calfs Head a LA Poulette

A stew of calf's head simmered in stock and finished with a butter‑flour sauce flavored with nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Calfs Head a LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the reserved pieces of the calf's head in a quart of stock over the fire.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in an equal amount of flour until smoothly blended.

  3. Gradually add a pint of hot stock, stirring until smooth.

  4. Season the sauce with grated nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper to taste.

  5. Allow the sauce to bubble gently.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms the roux with flour, giving the sauce richness and a smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Calf's head
Provides the main meat, whose pieces are heated in stock to cook them.

The step that matters

Stirring the stock into the roux. Adding hot stock gradually while stirring keeps the flour from clumping, so the sauce stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, parsley, flour, pepper):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, parsley, flour, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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